Welcome back, Dear Readers! Here’s what today’s edition will do for you:
Tell you about the mass stabbing attack outside a Japanese school in Suzhou, China
Recount the time The Beatles got death threats from Japanese judo fans
Plus all your favorite features, and:
A new section: a primer on an odd feature of the Japanese language. Let’s get into it…
THE QUIZ
A picture that Japanese people will recognize instantly. Do you?
Question: what’s this? (and why have they been so controversial recently?)
Answer at the foot of the mail.
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THE HEADLINES
1. $1 = ¥160
[🫣]
2. Don’t Mention the Mass Stabbing
June 24. Suzhou, Eastern China. A nutbag stabs a Japanese woman and her son then boards a schoolbus, apparently hoping to kill more children. A Chinese bus attendant intervenes, is knifed herself and subsequently dies.
The attack happens outside Suzhou’s Japanese school, a school that has been attacked previously with rotten eggs and other nasty harassment during the regular outbreaks of anti-Japanese feeling.
The heroic bus attendant (God bless her) was declared a “righteous and courageous role model”, but the fact that it was Japanese people who were attacked was suppressed by the Chinese authorities.
On Friday, the Japanese Embassy in China flew its flag at half-mast in memoriam for the bus attendant, and Ambassador to China Kenji Kanasugi said "We deeply respect her courageous act and sincerely express our condolences" — but it seems like both sides would rather the news drop out of sight, for fear of enflaming tensions.
(Very important: there is no indication yet if the attack was explicitly xenophobic — and let’s hope it wasn’t — but some of us remember the burning Japanese department store during the 2012 Anti-Japanese protests, the widely-applauded in China Yasakuni Shrine piss job, etc).
THE LANGUAGE
There’s a fascinating subset of Japanese words that have been created by taking an English word and popping the sound -ru on the end, making a new verb. Here’s a selection:
misuru (ミスる) - to make a mistake (a miss, in Japan, is a mistake)
baguru (バグる) - to be bugged (e.g. an app)
memoru (メモる) - to take a memo/note
bazuru (バズる) - to go viral (“buzz”)
dekoru (デコる) - to decorate
And the most famous is probably:
guguru (ググる) - to Google
(It remains a counterintuitive fact that using more words derived from English in your Japanese makes you sound more Japanese…)
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THE HISTORY
Happenings from this week in Japanese history:
Image: Bert Cohen
WAR-EARTHQUAKE-FIRE-FLOOD
1948: Fukui City, already carnaged by WW2, is hit by an earthquake from a previously-unknown fault line directly beneath the city.
3,769 people are killed
79% of buildings are leveled
Fires burned in the ruins
Then a few days later: heavy rain breaches damaged levees and puts the entire shitshow under water.
Fukui has definitely earned its title: City of the Phoenix (although the official future population estimates make for grim reading).
Image: Wikipedia
HEY JUDO
1966: The Beatles finish recording Revolver and are given precisely zero days off before embarking on their next tour.
After a brief stop in Germany they head for Tokyo, right into a bunch of right-wing nationalists death-threating the boys for having the temerity to play the first ever rock show at the Budokan, usually reserved for martial arts displays.
Amid the danger a total of 35,000 police and fire department personnel were mobilized to ensure The Beatles’ safety (Steve Turner writes in Beatles '66: The Revolutionary Year, a number which must surely be bullshit).
Anyway, they end up in enforced quarantine at the Tokyo Hilton and — this is an example of the tremendous ability for Japan to charm even in the least welcoming circumstances — become so enamored by their experience stuck in a room together they each come away with lifelong affection for the country.
They end up doing a run of 5 shows at the Budokan — which was assailed by rightwing protestors each night — during which the crowd was confined to the upper tiers and warned that anyone standing up or cheering risked being arrested (knowing Japan, this is something we can readily believe).
Spoiler alert: ultimately The Beatles were not judo-chopped to death by squads of rightwing nutbags. Instead they departed for Manila, where, after offending the entire nation by unintentionally stubbing Imelda “Verruca” Marcos, they were beaten up by rightwing nutbags (judo-style or not, we don’t know), during an epic, hours-long escape from the Philippines.
In the end, the Manila Debacle broke their bond with manager Brian Epstein, and made them quit touring permanently; a few months later John Lennon met Yoko Ono and truly committed to the whole Japan thing.
THE LINKS
Noteworth things from his week:
Watching American police officers take down a suspect makes you frightened for the average American. Watching Japanese police officers take down a suspect makes you frightened for the average Japanese police officer. Here's two of them holding on to a car thief for dear life and pleading with passers-by to call for help.
Last week we linked to Hiroko Yoda’s piece on the loquat (biwa), a fruit considered a traditional symbol of misfortune. This week Fujiyoshida City in Yamanashi Prefecture served biwa in school lunches — and 126 students went down with allergic reactions. (Hat tip to Kate Elwood for spotting the news)
Rainy season is here in force. Here’s a short piece from Yasumi Toyada’s Super Ordinary Life with some wonderful illustrated scenes from old newspapers.
THE ANSWER
Question: what’s this? (and why have they been so controversial recently?)
Answer: a public signboard for election posters
The ongoing Tokyo gubernatorial election has seen these signboards, set up in public places, become the center of kind of hybrid warfare — p*rn companies have commandeered the boards to put up photos of big-t*tted dopes, host clubs their pretty boys, and then there is the troll NHK Party, who have given over their officially assigned spots to anyone willing to donate ~$200. Strangely enough, that has resulted in a blizzard of QR codes linking to scam sites…
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Liked The Kyote this time? Read this next: The Gruesome Deaths That Inspired the Movie Godzilla.
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The Kyote is published in Kyoto, Japan every Sunday at 19:00 JST
Please continue the language section.
I like the language section too, and thanks for the mention!